This is a serious question that I'm having difficulty with.
It seems like lately there's a lot of teens having a grand ole time just breaking things, stealing kias, etc. Generally causing monetary distress to the communities they live in without actually stealing anything of value or use.
Like its not crimes of desperation, they're not selling anything they steal, just having a good time breaking car windows and doing general mischief.
I know news media will amplify these for copaganda purposes. Hogs will go wild shouting for public executions of these teens, etc.
But like, what causes this and what can be done to help communities not have dangerously bored teens just absolutely fucking up people's month or year by destroying their budget car they need to get to work, breaking windows which is expensive to fix, and just happens again, and generally just being dicks breaking things.
Not all the victims of crime are annoying SF tech bloggers which are easy to write off and laugh at.
if my simple mind has been completely taken advantage of, please let me know. I just don't get the young chaos agents. I can defend people stealing from walgreens but I just don't get breaking your neighbors shit.
EDIT: Since the real likely answer is sad and doomery, I want to invite folks to offer ideas of what could be done to strengthen these communities and give these kids an outlet.
I don't think it's just sadness and doomery. Lots of other countries' youth are sad and doomery, Japan and ROK for example having even worse stats than USA yet their crime rates across all ages are much lower
It's really a somewhat uniquely cultural problem that America has with disregarding your fellow human beings
The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch addresses this but it is one of those books where they identify and analyze the issue but not come to a good solution
It's also reactionary at times towards oppressed groups but like, he's American and you're reading a book in English so what more can you expect
Oh I didn't mean the cause is sad and doomery, more that the solutions are a huge reach for organization and expecting a local gov to make things better rather than fund the cops more is a pipe dream in some areas.
Thanks for the reading rec though.